The Circle by Dave Eggers

Only the very best books get the ‘Books Worth Staring At’ sticker, and here’s the latest to achieve this…

The book: The Circle by Dave Eggers

Published: 2012, by Penguin

Why we loved it: We use Facebook, Twitter, YouTube etc. every day. We’re even members of Google+, apparently. But imagine if there was one social network that controlled everything. Literally everything. In this superb and quite chilling novel, what starts as a satirical look at today’s social media-reliant culture soon becomes a dystopian nightmare.

Arriving at ‘The Circle’ campus, new recruit Mae is looking to make her mark with the world’s leading technologically innovative company. As she starts to rise through the ranks, the tasks that are expected of her become increasingly sinister, and, more troublingly, her resistance to them becomes less and less. As the company expands its reach into surveillance, ecommerce and democracy, Mae’s life is increasingly played out for all to see, with her actions judged by ‘smiles’ and ‘frowns’. As the company leaders come closer and closer to ‘completing The Circle’, it raises questions about our reliance on technology in modern life, and how private our lives can ever be when lived out on social media.

Dave Eggers is a top quality writer, and he proves that once again with The Circle. Give it a read. And then make sure you tweet about it, before ‘The Circle’ hunt you down…